Jack Hardaway
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Well imagine that! Sisters not getting along. It is such a rare thing for sisters to disagree!
Siblings. So close, so much alike, yet so different, so much love but not enough room…
We all know about sisters and brothers, we either have them or have been around them.
I think about the horrible things my brother and I would do to each other growing up, usually me doing it to him, and now he is my favorite person in the whole world.
We see two major biblical themes in the readings today. Hospitality and family, more specifically siblings.
Siblings.
Right there from the beginning.
Cain and Abel.
Esau and Jacob.
Joseph and his mob of brothers.
James and John over who is the greatest.
A general absence of hospitality seems to be the pattern.
The Gospel According to Luke has this sibling thing as well.
Last week we heard the parable of the Good Samaritan, Samaritans were siblings to the Jews, a different kind of Jew.
Their scripture was a little different, they read it differently, they worshipped differently, so much alike yet different. One held captive by Assyria, the other by Babylon.
They couldn’t stand each other, rivals for authentic Judaism, they did horrible things to each other, thus the irony of the parable that the example of faithful discipleship is a Samaritan of all people.
Then there is Luke’s other great parable, the prodigal son, with the resentful brother.
Then there is today, the short and simple story of Mary and Martha and their disagreement over how to welcome their guest, it turns out to be a very public spectacle, to all of history!
We see the two themes and family and hospitality coming together.
I have always loved those names, Mary and Martha, and their story. I’ve spoken before about my great aunt Mary Martha who was named after them.
So here it is: family, a public spectacle and Jesus of all people coming over for supper. A perfect set up for drama and good story telling, what else could you want?
Seriously there should be a whole literary subgenre of Jesus coming to supper stories. You know something is going to happen.
And then the surprise that Mary, a woman who broke the rules and sat at Jesus feet, became the example of discipleship. Luke’s Gospel has this thing about women being the example of discipleship. It seems to be a habit of his. The unlikely disciple-Luke comes back to that over, and over.
And then there is the resentful sibling, another habit of Luke’s storytelling, Martha. Or rather “Martha, Martha” as Jesus says. The sister who tries to take away Mary’s joy. She is like the resentful older brother in the parable of the prodigal son.
This story has been read many different ways over the millennia.
It has often been used to portray two different kinds of disciples, the prayerful ones and the active ones, the prayerful being the better and higher calling of the two, which is simply a very bad way to read the story, though it still has a great deal of momentum.
There is a great deal that this story of Mary and Martha teaches us, many angles of approach. The first lesson is the tendency toward resentment, and trying to crush one another’s sense of wonder and joy. The second lesson is that God comes to us in the unexpected, and that the greatest examples of faithfulness are surprising, discordant, and ironic.
The story leaves us hanging.
It is a story about Jesus, but it is much like one of his parables.
There is an unspoken question at the end, “Will Martha get it?” Will she catch on that she too can become a disciple of Jesus? Or will she cling to her indignation over her good for nothing sister and their domestic disagreement over how to properly welcome a guest?
Will Martha as well become the example of faith?
Will she put aside being busy, and truly welcome the guest by paying attention, by listening to her guest who has a word that needs to be heard.
The vision of God in Luke’s Gospel is the God who meets us in the dark unpleasant stuff of life, catching us short in our domestic disputes, challenging us to move beyond resentment into thanksgiving and praise, finding God’s presence blazing in those who really, really annoy and enrage.
We are all faced with that question.
The story of Mary and Martha is waiting for us to finish it.
What becomes of Martha? Our lives answer the question.
Will we pause long enough to hear the word that has come to us to be heard.
Will we choose the better part?